A lot has been made of Sunderland Football Club’s new manager Paolo Di Canio’s previous comments and actions, that have been expressly fascist in nature. The accusations, that Di Canio now call “ridiculous and pathetic”, include giving roman salutes to A.S. Roma fans (who are known to have a wide Jewish following), a recorded interview in 2005 where Di Canio said he was a fascist, not a racist, and a ‘Dux’ tattoo on his arm referring to Il Duce, Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini.

He has once described Mussolini as “basically a very principled, ethical individual” who was “deeply misunderstood”. To be rather (too) charitable to Di Canio, when he says Mussolini was misunderstood, this probably refers to the notion that unlike in Germany, Italian fascism was primarily predicated on authoritarianism, not race hatred. Indeed Di Canio says today that, apart from the fact he is not a politician and dislikes taking questions about his previous comments, that he has never disliked anybody – a further denial of his possible racism. Continue reading →